The team at Capital Economics was among the most bullish we found on the outlook for stocks in 2024.
The firm sees the benchmark S&P 500 rising to 5,500 by the end of this year, and adding another 1,000 points — roughly 18% — through the end of 2025, hitting 6,500 in a little under two years.
In a note to clients published Wednesday, the firm’s chief markets economist, John Higgins, walks through the main pillars of this forecast as investors have kicked off the year with some trepidation.
Higgins’s view most simply boils down to an argument that earnings can continue to rise and AI hype will ultimately inflate a stock market bubble.
Comparing the conditions for the market today to those that preceded the tech bubble in the late ’90s, Higgins notes, among other things, that while valuations for the market’s tech leaders are elevated, there is both scope for valuations to rise further…
